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Netflix Says Stop the Presses!

By Andrew Goldman October 21, 2011 3:31 pmOctober 21, 2011 3:31 pm

Since taking over in March, writing the Talk Q. and A. hasn’t been exactly what you could call a white-knuckle experience. Since the pages of The New York Times Magazine close more than a week before they hit newsstands, we can’t outrun the news. So this week’s interview with the C.E.O. of Netflix, Reed Hastings, provided some rare deadline drama. On Oct. 6, just as we were putting the finishing touches on the interview for the Oct. 16 issue, I got an e-mail from Netflix with the subject line “URGENT.” If the magazine ran the interview with Hastings as planned, The New York Times would look “foolish.” My contact refused to offer me any specifics about what was afoot, but he said I would understand early the following week. He was good on his word. The initial interview — in which Hastings provided his justification for spinning off the disc-only service of his company into Qwikster — would have made us look pretty dopey had we published almost a week after Netflix announced that it was ditching Qwikster altogether. So we quickly put moved up our Melissa McCarthy interview to run in Hastings’s place. Hastings talked to me three days after the Qwikster mercy killing and I drew the entirety of this week’s column from that one interview. But here’s one exchange from that earlier interview that’s worth rescuing.

Q.

You recently struck a deal with DreamWorks to stream all of their movies during the so-called pay TV window, the period channels like HBO have traditionally had exclusive rights to show films. I was surprised to see that you’re also allowing the studio to sell downloads of their movies at places like Amazon and iTunes at that time. Doesn’t that ultimately help your competitors?

A.

You could say it’s not in our interest, but it generates a lot of money for DreamWorks, so we were willing to give on that point. That’s part of why DreamWorks chose us instead of HBO. It certainly is better for the consumer in that they can still rent it at Amazon or iTunes, and they can watch it on Netflix. If someone wants it the first day it’s available, that’s a good choice for them. It’s never been our core market. Our core market has been unlimited streaming for $8 a month and a vast catalog.

Bruce Grierson wrote this week’s cover story about Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist who has conducted experiments that involve manipulating environments to turn back subjects’ perceptions of their own age.Read more…